


Scars

by Rhaenyra



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Challenge Entry, Community: HPFT, Dystopia, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Haymitch's victory, Hurt/Comfort, Loss, Post-Games (Hunger Games), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Quarter Quell, Second Quarter Quell, Self-Harm, Substance Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 19:25:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11858088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhaenyra/pseuds/Rhaenyra
Summary: In the aftermath of the Second Quarter Quell, new victor Haymitch Abernathy returns to District 12.  He and Daralyn Donner, twin sister to his deceased ally Maysilee, have a lot to say to each other.





	Scars

Scars

 

They had us line up at the train station. Naturally, we were made to stand at the front. This was part of the joy they got from the Games, watching the grieving families stand and watch the caskets of their loved ones come home. The fact that there were forty-seven grieving families this year instead of twenty-three made it all the better for them.

I was directly behind Mrs. Abernathy, staring at her back. I had overheard my parents talking the night before, when they thought I was safely drugged and in bed. They had been talking about how if they had to live through this, at least the focus would not be on them this year. They were one of three grieving families this time. And, for the first time in forty-three years, District 12 had managed to scrape together a victor.

How was it that we finally got a victor, but somehow ended up with one more dead kid than usual?

I tried not to focus on the cameras that were pointed in our direction, manned by people from the Capitol talking like they didn’t have a care in the world. Talking like they had not just killed dozens of children for sport. Anything to distract from the stinging in my arms, under the silky blue shirt that was supposed to not irritate and hide what I had done.

When the train came to a stop in front of us, I could hear my mother make some sort of strangled noise. Father reached out to her and gripped her hand. I did nothing. Couldn’t do anything. I had promised my parents I would not make a scene, not make it worse for us. We didn’t want retribution next year.

At least the wind was howling if I couldn’t.

The other two caskets were wheeled out before hers. They went to he families of the two Seam children – one eighteen, the other barely thirteen – first. When their parents and siblings were doing their best to keep it together, the third casket came to stop in front of us.

It was beautiful, much more expensive than anybody could afford here in District 12, even merchants. I suppose the Capitol thought it was the least they could do after sending kids home in boxes. They couldn’t even be buried in family plots. No, the Capitol demanded they be buried with all the other dead tributes in your district’s history. They claimed it was a place of honour. I know it is meant to punish us once more.

My eyes were strangely dry as the casket was placed in front of me. Father quickly placed his hands on it while Mother whimpered, “Maysilee.”

We had come into the world together, six minutes apart. The midwives told Mother that we had shared one sack, which I guess made us special. Until her name had come out of the Reaping Bowl last month, we had never been apart for longer than a few hours. Now, how many years was I going to have to face without her?

My head snapped up when the crowd began to clap. There was only one thing that could get that reaction from them. District 12’s second ever victor had appeared.

Haymitch looked like he did in his post-Games interviews. He no longer had coal dust embedded in his skin, his nails were clean, his clothes were the right size and recently laundered… none of those things were like the boy from school. Yet there was nothing they could do to fix the gaunt look of somebody who had first starved, eaten for a week, then been thrown in an arena full of poisons to starve once more.

He must have known that the cameras were on him because for all Haymitch Abernathy’s flaws – loudness, arrogance, condescension – he was not stupid. Far from it, as he had let slip to the entire country with his trick at the end of the Games. Even so, he did not seem to be playing his part in the Capitol’s narrative very convincingly. That is, until his mother and little brother rushed forward to hug him.

With a small stumble, he half fell into his mother’s arms. He had a grin plastered on his face as he mussed his brother’s hair, showing off his recently bleached teeth. Over the clapping, I could just hear him say, “I told you I’d come back little buddy.”

As he was pulled away to give the traditional speech to honour his district, we caught each other’s eyes for the first time. There was a momentary look of shock and horror on his face, which made my stomach clench. I had chopped six inches of hair off with an old pair of scissors the day after Maysilee had died, unable to bear the thought of looking at her face in the mirror and knowing she was dead. But today I had it pulled back, because Mother insisted that we hide the choppy ends from the cameras. “We don’t want to look like we are letting them break us,” she had whispered, braiding my hair carefully earlier in the day.

I hadn’t bothered to reply. They had broken me and everybody knew it. The only reason I was even pretending to go along was to not give them the satisfaction.

I don’t know when Haymitch realized that I wasn’t Maysilee, but he seemed to relax a bit after the initial shock. Even so, in the minutes before he was ushered away to speak with the mayor and have his photo taken for whatever reason (surely they had seen enough of his face by now?), he kept looking back at me.

Having never had a tribute return in my lifetime, the fact that there was a party held for the victor never really seemed that important. But the day after Haymitch had won, when I had hardly been able to get out of bed, I was informed that it was mandatory for the families of the district’s other tribute – or tributes, this year – to attend. The visit to the train station was the first time I had been out in public since Maysilee was killed and I was already exhausted. I was desperate to crawl back into bed. Instead, I was ushered with the other family members into the Justice Building.

Objectively, I knew the meal was nice. The chicken was stuffed with something, the veggies were swimming in butter, there were more soups than you could hope to eat in a single sitting, and more. I forced the bites down one by one, even though I felt like I would vomit. Dessert brought fruits I couldn’t even name. I bit my cheek while eating one, after which everything hurt and tasted of blood.

Fitting.

Haymitch’s escort was one of the only Capitol citizens present outside the camera crew, who at least seemed to have the common courtesy to try to blend into the background. He was placed on one side of Haymitch, Lyra on the other, and was failing to talk to the first victor he had managed to scrounge together. Haymitch was hardly looking up from his plate, except for when his mother and brother spoke. Judging from the pinched look on his escort’s face, this was not how he had been hoping the event would go.

For some ungodly reason, the Capitol tried to keep the festivities going with music and drinks after. I tried to grab a golden drink that smelled of apples and alcohol fumes, but my parents wouldn’t let me touch the stuff. They had no problem knocking a few drinks back themselves, though.

Under any other circumstances, I would have laughed at the fact that Haymitch’s escort, Nero, made him dance with his mother. Haymitch had always avoided those sorts of parties before the Games and he looked no more enthusiastic to find himself dancing than before. I did feel for Mrs. Abernathy though. She was not well, that much had been common knowledge around the district for a while. Something about spending more than two decades in the mines without proper safety gear. Surviving on one income after her husband’s death three years earlier probably hadn’t helped either.

I watched as Haymitch danced with his mother, while I stood a few people over from Lyra. She was now nearly sixty and had been forced to mentor eighty-seven kids into an early grave without reprieve. She and Nero seemed to be in a heated conversation, trying and failing to keep it quiet.

“Let the poor boy be,” she was half-yelling, half-whispering. “He hates the attention he’s getting. He’s not sleeping. He is going to spend the rest of his life trying to forget what you put him through, but you’ll be back next year and the year after until someone else takes your place. And he and I are going to be forced to bring more kids to the Capitol to face this same hell for the rest of our lives. He is not one of your dancing bears, Nero. Let him be.”

He seemed to be trying to find some sort of response, but all that came out was spluttering. Maybe he sensed that even after four decades, Lyra was more than willing to pick up a knife and use it against somebody if she needed to. The rest of his face went as red as his heavily rouged cheeks, but one more glare from Lyra and he suddenly felt the need to make sure that the camera crew was getting a chance to eat.

With Nero out of the way, Haymitch finished his dance with his mother and quickly ran over to where his mentor was standing. I averted my eyes and started back towards my parents.

A moment later, a felt a warm hand on my wrist. Hissing in pain, I pulled it back.

“Daralyn, wait.”

I turned back. Up close, it was easier to see that Haymitch was different. His eyebrows were shaped differently and his skin was flawless, not even marred by nicks from shaving or missed patches. His eyes were the same though, and his hair was going back to the way it had been after the Capitol had cut it.

“What, Haymitch?” My voice sounded weird. I wondered if lack of use could do that to a person.

“Can I talk to you for a bit?” he asked hesitantly. He sounded nothing like the Haymitch of before, the Haymitch who told you what he was going to do and just brought you along for the ride. His eyes darted around before he added, “Somewhere other than here.”

“Okay,” I replied. If there was anybody I wanted to talk to lately, it was him.

He brought me out of the room and through back corridors, confidently walking as though he knew where he was going. He didn’t seem worried about being stopped. Maybe that was what happened when the party was for you. When you were the hero of the district, for all the workers who would now be able to feed their children with the goods that arrived on Parcel Day.

Nobody questioned what we were doing between the rarely used conference room and the room at the back of the building he took me to. It was only when the door was firmly closed behind us that he spoke again.

“I’m sorry.”

Those weren’t the first words that I was expecting. “Sorry?”

“I shouldn’t have left her at the end,” he said, words pouring out of him. I wondered how long he had been wanting to say this. “If I was there, maybe she wouldn’t have died that way. Nobody deserves to die like that…”

“Choking on their own blood? I can think of a few.”

The tiniest smirk appeared on his lips. “Maybe a few.”

I shifted my weight, uncomfortable with what remained unsaid. “You both couldn’t make it back here. If you didn’t leave each other then, you would’ve used the forcefield against her.” He opened his mouth to protest, but I cut him off. “Neither of you wanted to kill each other.”

“No shit,” he said. He sounded almost offended that I felt the need to say it.

“I didn’t want her to come back after killing you and neither did she.” Best not to state the obvious fact that Maysilee and I had wanted somebody else to kill him so she could come back by the end. It was a terrible thing to think, never mind say out loud. “You had to separate for both of your sakes. I’m…” I trailed off, trying to will the tears not to fall. “If she had to die, I’m glad you were there with her. That she didn’t have to spend her last moments alone.”

I don’t think Haymitch knew how to react when the first tears fell. He wasn’t exactly known around the school as a guy who was in touch with his emotions. After what seemed like a long while, he said, “She made it easier in there, you know. She was a sweet girl.”

“She was more than sweet,” I said. I wiped the tears off my cheeks with the back of my hand, angry about everything that had led to this. “She was smart and had all these things she wanted to do to make the district better. She had so many things she never got to do. Did you know that the only time she really cuddled with a guy was with you in that fucking, poisonous arena? And unless you and Cass have some sort of weird agreement going on, that was for survival.”

“I didn’t know that,” he whispered. “But I knew the rest. We had a lot of time to talk in there, you know. Even though I’m sure they wouldn’t broadcast some of the things we said.”

Neither of us spoke for so long I was sure he was going to walk out. When it started to become unbearable, I asked, “How are you holding it together so well? You killed people. You held the other half of me in your arms when she died. Half your guts were falling out.”

“I am mildly sedated right now,” he said.

I looked for a sign that he was joking, but he seemed to be serious. “I’m surprised the Capitol is allowing that.”

“Strictly speaking, they don’t,” he said. “Lyra fought for it.”

“They cut you off everything so soon after shoving your intestines back into your body?”

Without a word, Haymitch unbuckled his belt and pulled his starched white dress shirt up. Where all logic said there should have been an ugly looking surgical scar, there was nothing but his smooth olive stomach and the early growths of hair. “They fix you up pretty well when you get out. If you manage to get out.”

“How?”

“I honestly have no idea,” Haymitch said. “I was sort of out of it the first few days after I got back. Unconscious most of the time, actually.”

“I could use that.”

“What, the scar removal or being knocked out by people who just made you fight for your life?”

“Both,” I said, “especially if it wasn’t done by the Capitol.”

“What would you need them to fix?” He sounded incredulous that I would want the Capitol’s help with anything.

I gingerly pulled my sleeve up to my elbows, revealing my bandaged forearms. “My parents got Ruthie to help wrap them up,” I said. “She brought a few things from the apothecary to help soothe the cuts and keep infection away, but they still sting.”

Haymitch’s eyes hadn’t moved from the bandages. “Dara, when…” He let out a long, slow breath. “You did that to yourself.” 

“Right after Maysilee died,” I said, carefully pulling my sleeves back down. “Ruthie’s been coming over to help every day or two since. Mother and Father are giving her money, since they don’t seem to want to tell her parents about what I did.”

Haymitch closed the gap between us. He grabbed my wrists again, but was exceedingly gentle this time, unlike any side of him I had ever seen before. I wondered if this was the side my sister got to see in the arena sometimes, or if he kept it hidden from everybody but his family and Cass. “She wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself,” he said. “She would want us to do what she hoped she could do. Believe me, I get not wanting to remember. I let them keep pumping me full of the good drugs as long as I could get away with.”

“Mother and Ruthie gave me something at first too,” I admitted, “but now Mother seems to think I’m no longer a danger to myself and won’t give me anything else, except at night. Not that that belief has stopped her from hiding everything she thinks I could use to hurt myself.”

“I asked Lyra if it gets easier to deal with,” Haymitch said. He ran a hand through is dark hair. “She didn’t want to answer.”

“It can’t get any worse than it is now, can it?”

We looked at each other for a long time before he replied. “For a while, maybe. But nothing will bring her back. Nothing will make the memories go away. And nothing is going to stop the Capitol from making me lead a couple other District 12 kids to the slaughter next year.”

“That doesn’t help,” I said bluntly.

“No, it doesn’t,” he agreed. “But to give up would be letting them win. They got her, they can’t take us too.”

“If I fight, you have to fight the urge, too. No more taking their drugs to forget.”

Haymitch sighed. “I know,” he said. “Neither of us can let them break us.”

Without another word, we squared our shoulders and began back to Haymitch’s party.

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Note: I got the character of Mrs. Undersee for Kaitlin’s “The Super Minor Character Challenge”. Mrs. Undersee was the twin sister of one of the girls who was killed in the Games Haymitch won, so I could not resist the prospect of a young Haymitch interacting with her just after the Quarter Quell. It’s kind of dark, especially knowing where Haymitch and Mrs. Undersee are mentally by the time we meet them 24 years later, but I have to believe they had hope at some point.


End file.
